Sidon excavations complete historic legacy

Source: The Daily Star (Lebanon)
By Mohammed Zaatari and Carol Rizk

SIDON: Valuable archaeological ruins recently uncovered in Sidon proved to be the missing link in the city’s historic legacy. This week, the British Museum delegation uncovered this year 13 burial sites, temples and personal items dating to the Canaanite period in the coastal city’s Freres archeological site. “We uncovered the biggest number of ruins this year and this helped complete the cycle of historic periods discovered in the site,” said head of the British Museum delegation Dr. Claude Doumit Serhal.

“What is remarkable about this week’s discovery is that it reveals the religious rituals and lifestyle during the Canaanite period” said Serhal. “The site, unlike any other in Lebanon, showed the clear succession of historic periods in Sidon.”

This week’s discoveries included a 48-meter-long temple filled with bronze pieces, knives and rings as well as pottery and stone statues used by ancient people to repel evil spirits. The site also contained temples dating back to 3000 BC and 1000 BC along with nine rooms and cereal stocks.

Around 108 burial sites from 1900 BC and 15000 BC were also discovered. They contained several types of burnt cereals and animal corps and revealed the religious and funerary rituals of that period.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=105005


The page has a lot of distracting clutter, but the article is quite good.

plus all of the general layout of tombs and such.

Did you see the Salon article on Cahokia? Fun funeral customs there.

Do they?